New Delhi, Aug 2 (IANS) The BJP-led NDA leaders on Sunday urged for action against independent MP Pappu Yadav and other opposition MPs for the act put up by them at the Parliament complex which portrayed the alleged embezzlement of donations made at Ayodhya’s Ram Temple, while calling it an “insult” to the Parliament. However, the INDIA bloc leaders hit back, questioning the donation theft allegations.
The reactions followed after an FIR was lodged against Pappu Yadav, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, and Samajwadi Party MP Awadhesh Prasad for “hurting religious sentiments”.
Describing the act as “cheap, disgusting and criminal”, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said: “Members who have been elected to the Parliament including Rahul Gandhi, Samajwadi Party president and MP Akhilesh Yadav, and Dimple Yadav, along with several such MPs, tried to support what Pappu Yadav did.”
Defending the FIR, he added: “They worked to insult Hindus, saints and the devotees of Lord Ram. I condemn it in the strongest possible words. Action should be taken against these people.”
JD-U leader Shyam Rajak remarked that the Parliament is not a stage.
“Given Pappu Yadav’s background, he has been an ‘Anand Margi’. But ‘Anand Margis’ are people connected to an institution after all. If they wanted to act, they could have done so elsewhere. Behaving like this in Parliament is an insult to it,” he told IANS.
BJP MP Karan Bhushan Singh also said: “Insulting Sanatan Dharma is wrong.”
Moreover, he warned the Opposition to not play with people’s religious sentiments, “otherwise, when the country responds, you will have to face the consequences”.
Bihar BJP President Sanjay Saraogi further criticised the opposition leaders, saying “The way they mocked Sanatan and Hindu culture and also the way seers and saints were made fun of, it will not be tolerated by people of the country.”
While asserting that no one has the right to attack anyone’s religious faith, JD-U MLC Neeraj Kumar Singh said: “The major question is whether the Congress is wandering away from the Constitution’s Preamble? No one has no right to speak on religious beliefs and traditions. But in the new era, Congress is there, in a new form.”
Meanwhile, Congress MP Tariq Anwar backed the Purnia MP, saying “An FIR can be registered in connection with just about anything. What Pappu Yadav did was merely a way to draw people’s attention. There was no ulterior motive behind it.”
“The kind of theft that has taken place at the Ram Temple, the way offerings made by devotees have been looted—naturally, people are raising this issue in their own ways,” he told IANS.
Congress Kanhaiya Kumar questioned whether the BJP have any “patent” over saffron? while mentioning that the Tricolour also has saffron in it.
“It was the RSS that never hoisted the Tricolour. They never accepted the country’s Independence. Who has given these new claimants a patent?…They are looking at saffron as something insulting. That is the result of their own thinking,” he told reporters.
Samajwadi Party MP Rajeev Rai stated, “Pappu Yadav will respond himself. But if his act is being called an ‘insult to Sanatan’, then what about the theft of donations at the Ram Temple, the land grabbing, and those who are doing business in the name of the Ram Temple? Does that honour Sanatan? Those making such allegations should be ashamed and have no moral right to speak on the issue.”
–IANS
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